


The Northern Approach

by beetle



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Abyssal High Dragon, Adoribull - Freeform, Banter, Character Study, Cultural Differences, Dragon Age: Inquisition Quest - Here Lies the Abyss, Dragon hunting, Exalted Plains (Dragon Age), F/M, Failboats In Love, Female Hawke/Loghain Mac Tir UST, Gamordan Stormrider, High Dragons, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Humor, Idiots in Love, Light Angst, M/M, Necklace of the Kadan, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition Quest - Here Lies the Abyss, Pre-Dragon Age: Inquisition Quest - Here Lies the Abyss, The Western Approach, tempest inquisitor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-04-25 18:48:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22329970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: After the Inquisitor's party takes down the Abyssal High Dragon of the Western Approach, Bull notices Dorian Pavus remove one of its teeth. He decides to not jump to conclusions and is mostly un-disappointed. Mostly.Meanwhile, once Dorian is clued-in to the possible intentions implied by the harvesting of teeth from the maw of a large, dead lizard and presenting them to his paramour . . . instead ofretroactivelydeclaring his intentions, he declares them in the only wayany'Vint worth his volume in wine would:The hard way.Written for the Adoribull 2019 Reverse Bang. See end notes. Fanart to be added shortly.
Relationships: Female Adaar & Dorian Pavus, Female Adaar & Iron Bull, Female Adaar/Blackwall, Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus
Comments: 10
Kudos: 19
Collections: Actually Adoribull Fic, The Collected Fanfics for the Adoribull Reverse Bang 2019





	The Northern Approach

**Author's Note:**

> At least three chapters, possibly four (unlikely to be five). Set amorphously around "Here Lies the Abyss." Spoilers. Fic rating might change from Mature | R, to Explicit | NC-17.
> 
> **EDIT:** I should be posting the rest of this fic after January 30th. This whole month has featured many RL-asskickings for me, between work, financial, and health-related issues (literally the worst start to a year I have ever had). The work-stuff, anyway, should be calmed-the-eff-down by the 30th. To the peep(s) invested in this fic, thanks for bearing with me. You're real one(s) :-)

Now that the bright, hot, _dangerous_ hours of midday have passed, the Inquisitor’s party—and a streamlined troop composed of Scout-Corporal Valance and his toughest two-person fireteam, as well as Staff-Sergeant Carrow and ten of her most versatile front-line melee soldiers—are once again well-on their way north.

In this final eerie-arid, rocky-still quadrant of the Western Approach—a hazardous wasteland poorly disguised, even on first glance, as simple desert—the Inquisition’s main objective is to establish a camp at Nazaire’s Pass.

There is, of course—as always—a second, sort of side objective. There always is, with an organization as large-and-still-growing-geometrically as the Inquisition.

Now, still the better part of a half-day’s travel from the pass, according to Scout-Corporal Valance, the Inquisitor halts her mount and her mounted party. With a slight nudge of her heels to the mount’s sides, and a raised and closed fist, respectively.

The entire troop falls silent and still, near-instantly. The Iron Bull, captain of The Bull’s Chargers and the Inquisitor’s front-line bodyguard (on the rare occasion that she needs such), draws even with the Inquisitor and only then halts his mount. The spirited, but mostly well-trained dracolisk—Bull half-jokingly calls her _Shokrakar_, but she tends to pick and choose her moments of rebellion with real deliberation . . . and this is certainly not one of them—snorts and hisses at nothing _Bull_ can see.

This being the Western Approach, she could be scenting/sensing anything from some damned belly-crawling, bottom-feeding pest, undead or otherwise . . . or a full-on demon or darkspawn, though the latter are far more likely after dark.

Bull sends a look the Inquisitor’s way, brows raised in silent question. Adaar’s hackles are clearly up as she scans their surroundings, working from close at hand to farther out. When she merely frowns and looks ill-at-ease, Bull also gives the area a once-and-twice over but sees and senses nothing unusual.

Well. Nothing _more_ unusual than anything in this blasted, blighted stretch of terrain tends to be.

All around them are skeletal and even not-so-skeletal remains of unwary animals and adventurers—not surprising, as the Inquisitor’s halted them near the broken foundation and tumbled architecture of _yet another ancient fortress_. The Western Approach is littered with them—with defenses of stone and iron gone to ruin only partly because of time and lack of upkeep.

Bull surely isn’t the only one to notice that some of the boulders, foundational stones, and toppled columns bear large and unmistakable teeth marks. And claw marks. And scorch marks.

Some even look as if they’ve been _picked up and tossed aside_ . . . with few signs of strain or effort.

So, it’s not entirely surprising when the Inquisitor sniffs the air, tilts her head slightly, then launches herself off her mount—a large Tirashan hart she calls _Taashath_ . . . and _calm_ is a perfect name for the steady, canny beast—in one smooth, sudden, and powerful vault.

“We’ll place some of Frederic’s lures here, before we continue to the pass,” she says as barest explanation, her smoky-low voice modulated to carry but a few yards in the still, parched air. She removes three of said lures from her patient mount, holding out one to Bull then, after a moment of consideration and a small, sardonic smile, a second one.

“Don’t expect anything to be lured, today, Bull. And we’re not going to waste daylight waiting, either,” she warns, then nods toward an outcropping of denuded stones and columns, many of which are clustered and still upright: an inconvenient place to have to spread one’s wings for sudden flight or defense. “But I figure we can lose an hour or so, to see if anything nibbles. If it doesn’t, we’ll come back once the camp is set up and make a day or three of it.”

Bull dismounts, too—far less showily—and takes the lures with a big grin. “You’re the _best_, boss. After you.”

The Inquisitor snorts, and—with a reserved, but affectionate scritch-scratch of Taashath’s neck, which the hart returns by nosing her left shoulder—strides off toward the trap-in-the-making.

At the sound of a quiet, grumble-hissed: “Venhedis,” Bull smirks and turns his gaze briefly from the Inquisitor’s surcoated back and aurum-plated, back-curling horns. The smirk widens as he glances at the third and fourth members of the Inquisitor’s party—Warden-Constable Blackwall and Dorian Pavus—and behind them, also mounted on sturdy Ferelden Forders, are Valance’s scouts and Carrow’s soldiers.

The other two members of the Inquisitor’s party are riding, respectively, a stolid, chestnut-colored Anderfel Courser, and . . . some creepy bit of Avvar necromancy-and-demon-crap.

Bull doesn’t even need to guess which of the other two party-members had sworn _so_ ‘Vintingly.

“Whatsamatta, mage-boy? Worried something big and mean’ll get its big-mean teeth in ya?” he asks, and Blackwall chuckles. His pale face is a tad sunburned, at nose and forehead, but he doesn’t seem bothered by that. He’s as stolid, hardy, and uncomplaining as his courser.

Dorian, meanwhile, ascends immediately into dudgeon and drama, most high.

It’s a single-step ascent and, in all honesty, that step is quite shallow.

“_Noooooo_,” the persnickety mage elaborates, looking red, overheated, and miserable in the blazing sunlight and his fancy—flattering—spell-armored robes. “That would be patently ridiculous, considering most of my nights are spent being mauled by an only slightly tamed, horned menace! I’d simply rather not hang about disturbing ruins _rife_ with dragon-signs, while in a party carrying _dragon-lures_, and surrounded by hostile beasties and who knows what else!” Huffing, Dorian pets his corpse-mount’s frost-colored mane, as if for comfort that probably only has any effect on him. Hell, the damned horse isn’t even _breathing_, let alone bothered by the hot, scouring air or the possibility of a dragon. “Not to mention, poor Oathie’s probably melting in his horseshoes—I know _I am_!”

At this, both Blackwall and his courser snort—in tandem, even. Bull laughs. “Aww, well, don’t worry . . . once we make camp for the evening, I’ll peel your horseshoes off and give those overheated footsies a massage, huh? But your weird, dead ride is on its own,” he adds, smirking wide again. But it soon relaxes into a grin, then a smile as the less-petulant—but hiding it _well_—mage mutters and complains under his breath.

Neither discomfort nor sun can account for the increased redness of his cheeks and the way that pouty mouth twitches below its finicky mustache.

And nothing, seemingly, can account for the way Bull can’t control the deeply in-drawn breath and the resulting sigh that moves through him, leaving behind the ludicrous and only barely-fightable need to laugh and throw his arms wide and up toward the sky. . . .

Before then tackling Dorian off his undead steed and holding onto him so tight he lets loose with more silly-adorable ‘Vint swears and blasphemy, and that smoldering stink-eye he levels when he’s feeling particularly obstinate and . . . conquerable.

And Bull,_ of course_, would make good—yet again—on some stated objectives _he’d_ made months ago, now.

The novelty of tearing robes off Dorian Pavus, who has no right to look so good in or out of them, hasn’t yet worn off. In fact, it’s worn . . . on? In? Through?

Whichever of those means that after countless pinnings-down of said ‘Vint, for the aforementioned conquering—complete with said ‘Vint’s hot-urgent hands desperately gripping Bull’s horns and shoulders and biceps . . . or _whatever_ of his they could reach while, around them, _especially flammable_ items burst into blue-glowing mage-fire that burned yet didn’t consume—interest has not been lost.

It has, if anything, _been gained_, and is _still_ gaining.

Bull’s never experienced anything quite like it or like Dorian Pavus. Though, he supposes that if the novelty is what’s keeping him coming back for more, then eventually, sooner rather than later, the whole thing will dwindle and taper and fade.

Time’s a bitch, like that. But it is, what it is.

Yet, in some moments . . . Bull wonders. . . .

What will he do, when it wears off? What would he do if it _did_ . . . but only for one of them?

What would he do if it didn’t wear off for either of them? What, _then_?

_This moment—_while staring at Dorian’s fussy-meticulous mustache and pretty, not-quite-smiling mouth—turns into a wonder-moment. Not the first one, even for today. Nor even since they broke midday camp.

And since Bull _definitely_ doesn’t need moments like those while ostensibly dragon-hunting (in the Western Approach, no less), he turns away and looks for a couple likely spots to stash Freddy’s dragon-lures.

# # #

Minutes after the lures have been placed, most of the group is milling around uneasily, speaking quietly and sporadically (even Dorian, who’s in muted, somber conversation with the Inquisitor, while Blackwall stands close enough to her to suggest personal intimacy without quite confirming it). They’re all clearly itching to be gone from the remains of this broke-down fortress.

Even Bull, leaning on a boulder several yards distant from the group, kind of wants to move on. But only because he’s bored and a bit overheated in all the damn sun.

He is, in fact, staring off into that sun, brooding about absent dragons and fine-ass ‘Vints with distracting mouths, when a _freaking_ _High Dragon_ rises suddenly and ominously from behind a half-mile distant rocky outcropping, leading to a low butte.

Because, _of course._

Of course!

“Dragon territory _and_ the dragon’s at home!” Bull exclaims eagerly, drawing his blade, as he gazes up and up and _up_, tracking every flap of the High Dragon’s wings as it stretches them, lazily circling the butte. The Inquisitor’s party and the back-up troop fall dead-silent and Bull can hear the flap of those wings, even from a half-mile hence. “Ahhh, this is gonna be _good_!”

“Yes—absolutely _corking_!” Dorian’s the first to have something to say, as always. His accompanying laugh sounds like a series of unhappy squawks. “What a perfect way to ruin my day! Death-by-High Dragon!”

“Hey—_I’m_ the only big meanie who gets his teeth, or anything else, in ya! This won’t be the _first_ asshole who learns _that_ lesson the hard way!” Bull growls, squaring up a bit, absently swinging his sword in a tight, controlled arc. His eyes remain on the winged, fire-breathing doom, even as the blood in his veins feels fiercer and . . . _redder_ than usual, somehow.

He can feel Dorian’s startled and possibly admiring regard on him, distinct from the momentous approach of the High Dragon. He takes a bare instant to reflect that he’d _no idea,_ upon waking up this morning, just how _good_ this day would get.

“Formation, everyone!” Adaar barks, glancing around the group intently, before turning that stare back to the dragon now winging their way. “Just like in our drills! _MOVE_!”

But everyone’s already moving, to their credit, behind and under cover, with arms and armor ready. In an impressively acrobatic, but economical dive-roll-somersault, Adaar makes for the same stubby group of several menhirs Bull does. So does Dorian—or, he starts to, before Blackwall grabs him and drags him to the larger, safer cover of what might once have been a small antechamber or guard-post. Most of a wall and part of the ceiling are still upright.

With Dorian safe—safe-er than himself—Bull takes cover a split second after the Inquisitor does. Half the stones comprising that cover are long-broken more from dragon-activity, than time and aridity . . . or so Bull would guess from all the claw and scorch marks.

Adaar swears under her breath, blisteringly, as the dragon—really, just _crazy_-huge and the color of an angry, baked brick—quickly closes the distance between itself and the group.

Even with the big, honking-ass dragon about to stoop on them and roast the shit out of them—from a height of too-damn-close—Bull still finds small, on-purpose cracks in the Inquisitor’s ever-poised, ever-stoic, ever-sanguine affect funny as shit. Her expression is as impassive and unruffled as usual, but for the tiniest of frowns as she crouches closer to Bull, making herself small and positioning herself low. She automatically goes for the right side of her grenade-belt, then, hissing some more quiet swears, goes for the left side of the belt, freeing a grenade that has three barely noticeable white dots on it. Then several flasks with the same series of dots from a compartment on her utility belt.

For a moment, Bull’s also deeply impressed by more than Adaar’s eye-of-the-storm calm. “You’ve got a _lotta_ belts on, today, boss. Feels like I shoulda worn my _extra_ harness, just to keep up,” he admits under his breath, only to get a dryly withering glance from Adaar. He shrugs, then turns his full and enthusiastic attention back to the High Dragon that will _very shortly_ be directly above them. “Lookit that! Ah, Freddy’s gonna be sorry he missed _this_ beaut, firsthand.”

“Probably. I’m _preeeeeetty_ sure this giant, dopey-looking shitbird’s _the_ Abyssal High Dragon he was having orgasms over,” Adaar drawls, then snorts. “_Of course_, it is. We have other, _actually important_ things to do during this mission—such as get that camp set up. _And_ . . . today’s a Tuesday. I’ve _always_ been crap at Tuesdays. Fuck.”

Despite the lament, her tone sounds like nothing so much as the deepening of her disapproving frown and of her usual intense, fire-and-ice conviction to see even nuisance-obstacles swiftly and utterly obliterated from her path. Bull grunts. “You’re not lyin’, boss. But, hey, you’re good at _dragons_. Well . . . the slaying of. We _both_ are. That’s not half-bad, as consolation prizes go.”

“Not bad, at all.” The Inquisitor’s reply is more a cold, merciless statement of intent than mere agreement with Bull’s statement of fact. In moments like this—despite the epic company _his own bed_ sees, near-nightly—Bull can’t help but envy Blackwall his place in the Inquisitor’s. Then, this not-quite-regret is swept to the back of his mind when the Inquisitor huffs a raspy-curt laugh, nods at the imminent dragon, and adds: “_Big_ fucker, no?”

“_The bigger, the better_’s my motto, boss.” Bull growls again and chuckles, joyous and vicious. Around them, everyone’s in pre-chosen positions, even a strangely silent Dorian, whose gaze darts back and forth between Bull and the dragon almost directly above their patch of ruins. Bull tips a smirk and a wink (blink) the mage’s way and raises his sword. **“*Taarsidath-an halsaam**!”

“Ditto!” Adaar agrees, laughing. There’s a grin in her voice, now, anticipatory and _hungry_, and Bull has no doubt the Inquisitor’s exchanging a heated and intense, if brief stare with Blackwall. “And try not to get dead, out there, Bull, huh?”

Bull finds _that_ funny as shit, too . . . even with those weird-confused little looks he can still feel Dorian sending his way. “Same on ya, boss! See ya on the other side!”

They’re both laughing as they both launch themselves from cover to take on the Abyssal High Dragon, with Blackwall, the Inquisition troops, and Dorian Pavus’s elemental magic bringing up the rear.

Despite today being a Tuesday, it’s a _very_ _good_ day to die . . . even though they won’t and don’t.

**TBC**

* * *

**Translations:**

  
***"I will bring myself sexual pleasure later, while thinking about this with great respect."**

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt:**  
  
For the Adoribull 2019 Reverse Bang fanart prompt, captioned:  
  
After killing a dragon in the Exalted Plains, Bull notices Dorian taking out one of its teeth.  
  
  
  
  
**Thanks:**  
  
To anyone giving this a read (and hopefully a comment and/or kudo :-)  
  
  
  
  
**Resources & References for this fic:**  
  
Dragon Age Wiki  
Google  
Wikipedia  
  
  
  
  
[TUMBLES with the bug](http://beetle-ships-it-all.tumblr.com)! And [PILLOWFORTS with the bug, too](https://www.pillowfort.io/beetle-comma-the)!


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